Becoming Less Wrong

410 error - Gone This is a small letter discussing two opposing points of view:1) Getting it right. The idea that we progress toward some "right" that is out there.2) Getting it less wrong. The idea that we progress from where we have been.The author suggests the latter is the correct view of science.For discussion I think this is an "Is it Science" topic or maybe just coffee house.

It seemed there should be something more in your message 1. Perhaps especially since you are an admin, I didn't want to pass a below standards opening message.Upon further reflection, perhaps a position statement from you would have been a good thing. But not an essential thing.Stand by for topic promotion.Adminnemooseus

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

As I see it, the state of knowledge on a topic can be divided into 3 areas - Wrong, right, and the unknown.The goal would be to make the "wrong" less wrong. Also to fill in the unknown with knowledge, hopefully right but possibly wrong. If "wrong", then again strive to be less wrong.Conceivably, the "wrong" could be essentially if not absolutely eliminated, leaving only the "right" and the unknown. But fresh "wrong" can always be created, either from the unknown or even from the "right".Absolute "right" will never be reached, but I think there can be the "right" situation and also the "more right" situation.So science can strive for both "less wrong" and "more right". These are not synonymous since "right" can created both from "wrong" and from "unknown".Somehow I feel I'm slipping into Brad-land.Moose

Au contraire, I think your point is very well taken.One of the most irritating things about debating with religionists is their insistance on always having an explanation for everything, even in the absence of any evidence.One needs to always keep the existance of the (so far) unknown clearly in view, maybe even cherish it as the source of new knowledge.As for "the wrong", I have always liked Mark Twain's "It's not the things we don't know that do the most harm, but the things we know that ain't so." (from memory, wording probably not exact).

I think the article would disagree:The problem is to be moving toward "more right" you have to have a goal ahead. This is not what we do in science, e.g. Getting to be less wrong is only moving relative to what we have now; moving away from the erroneous part. There is no goal that we are moving toward.If you say we are "more right" you have the idea of the Right that is out there and that we move toward. The philosophical differences are large.

I think you and Moose are just talking about the same philosophy, but with different words.Let's take Newton's laws as an example.Newton's laws are 'right', and Moose would say that Quantum explanations are 'more right'. All this time though, Moose is still not pursuing any 'absolute truth goal'.You're saying that Newton's laws are 'not very wrong' and then saying that Quantum explanations are 'less wrong still'. Again, you're focusing on not pursuing any 'absolute truth goal'.In this context, we can see that 'more right' and 'less wrong' can describe the exact same circumstance.I agree with Nosy though... that even if the philosophy is the same, it is less confusing to only talk in 'less wrongs' for outsiders to understand what's going on. As soon as the talk of 'more right' comes up, an outsider can easily mistake that for some sort of pusuit for an 'absolute truth goal'. And that is worth a bit of re-wording to try and avoid.Meh. Semantics.

quote:

---

The problem is to be moving toward "more right" you have to have a goal ahead. This is not what we do in science, e.g. Getting to be less wrong is only moving relative to what we have now; moving away from the erroneous part. There is no goal that we are moving toward.

---

Perhaps I'm horribly missing something here, but it seems to me that science is moving toward a goal: an accurate description of the real world.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

I would say yes, that goal is to achieve an absolutely accurate and comprehensive description of reality. That description would be "right". However, since we can probably never reach such a perfect description (and would have no way of knowing that we were absolutely correct even if we did) we can only hope to progressively lessen our wrongness, whilst striving to move progressively towards rightness.Or am I wrong?The letter just seems to be outlining a way of describing why scientists aspire to treat all knowledge tentatively. I quite like it, I think it makes an important point in a lucid way.

---

Mutate and Survive

This is all a bit subtle, maybe so subtle it's not even really there but I think the point is we don't have a goal to move toward. All we can do is move away from wrongness. We don't actually know if that is necessarily toward "right".There may be a lot of different paths all of which lead away from wrong but some may not be heading directly toward right. For example, GR is less wrong than Newton's ideas of gravitation. That has been shown. However, what if the "right" answer is something utterly different from GR. It is a blind alley in itself. Maybe one of the new multi dimensional thingies is off in a different direction and less wrong than GR but still not heading in whatever might be the right direction either.

quote:

---

The letter just seems to be outlining a way of describing why scientists aspire to treat all knowledge tentatively.

---

I don't think so. From the letter: While he's certainly advocating a different approach to acquiring knowledge, I think he's also serious in his statement that "there is no such thing as 'right.'"I believe that there is an objective reality that truly exists, and that science is an attempt to discover as much as possible about that reality. I agree with you that we have no way of knowing whether we are absolutely correct in any description (given the inherent tentativity of science), but that doesn't prevent us from being correct.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

quote:

---

I think the point is we don't have a goal to move toward. All we can do is move away from wrongness. We don't actually know if that is necessarily toward "right".

---

There are two different ideas here: 1) we don't have a goal to move toward, and 2) we don't actually know if our "motion" is toward right.If there is an objective reality, then right can be defined as accurately describing that reality. This is a separate question from whether a given explanation actually is right. And, while we cannot ever know, to 100% certainty, whether we are moving toward the "truth," that doesn't prevent the "truth" from existing.I'm not necessarily disagreeing with the letter writer, that moving away from wrong is valuable. I'm not sure I agree, however, that we have to approach things from that angle to avoid "rigid hierarchical social organizations." Whether we believe there is or isn't a goal is completely separate from how we try to reach that goal.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

It prevents "truth" existing for us.While agreeing that an objective truth exists, I don't think we'll ever get to where we can have it as "truth".

quote:

---

It prevents "truth" existing for us.

---

It doesn't prevent "truth" from existing. It simply prevents us from knowing as an absolute certainty that we've found it.Let me give an example. My understanding is that we are quite certain that matter is composed of molecules, which are in turned composed of atoms. (Anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong in this, it's not exactly my field.) Now, if in fact this is actually the case, then we have discovered a truth. We consider this truth to be tentatively held, because we might discover something tomorrow that will change it all. But our considering it to be tentative doesn't prevent us from being correct if in fact we are.

---

Those who would sacrifice an essential liberty for a temporary security will lose both, and deserve neither. -- Benjamin FranklinWe see monsters where science shows us windmills. -- Phat

Yeah, that's what I was saying. Even if we are, in fact, absolutely correct, our tenativity prevents it from ever becomming "truth" to us.So we, ourselves, cannot have it as "truth" (even though it might actually be).It might be "truth" in reality, but for us it will never be "truth".

---

Also, since we don't know what the "truth" is beforehand. How can we work towards it? If we don't know what it is, how can we know we are going towards it? We can't. So all we can do is move away from what we do know is wrong.